Flu Shots are [Still] For Idiots

Well it is flu season now and I was asked by a reader if there was anything new from last year’s post on “Flu shots are for idiots”.

Well I have had some delay because, well, I had the flu.

But that doesn’t mean I am going to get a flu shot!

Since last year the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) here in my home town of Atlanta, GA, have gone from thinking that everyone under the age of 6 should get a flu shot to stating that everyone under 18 should get one, in addition to everyone over the age of 50, as well as other groups of people with specific medical conditions, and healthcare workers. In fact, government agencies world-wide seem to be hyper-eager to get everyone to get those flu shots. But, personally, before I do anything like submit myself to having a needle jammed in my arm that I have to pay for, I always ask myself, is there any evidence that this is going to actually help ME? In the case of the flu shot the answer is… probably not. Sure it will help the manufacturer of the flu shot make their sales projections. And why the CDC has gotten itself into the sorry ass position of recommending vaccines for people in whom the evidence does not exist to support a real benefit is beyond me. In fact the data that flu vaccines save lives in these age groups is just not that great (translation: doesn’t exist). The problem is that there are many strains of flu and the vaccine targets only one, and you need the shots every year cuz the viruses keep changing.

And that oft quoted figure of 30,000 deaths per year? Half of those cases of the “flu” are actually flu-related illness that is not actually caused by an influenza virus (and not prevented by flu shots). And most of the rest are in the elderly who often have impaired immunity so the flu shot wouldn’t work for them anyway.

I have reviewed the literature and the ONLY group for which there is ANY evidence that flu shots might save lives is with people with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) which is caused by smoking. So if you want to avoid dying from the flu, stop smoking. And no, they don’t reduce days lost from work overall.

As for the guilt trip that hospital workers should get the shot to prevent spread to patients, the flu is infectious for one day before the onset of symptoms and five days after the start of symptoms, so if you get sick, stay at home for five days

The experts in the literature are actually saying not to use flu vaccines, although noone seems to listen to them. Quoting epidemiologist Tom Jefferson below: from an article in BMJ.

The optimistic and confident tone of some predictions of viral circulation and of the impact of inactivated vaccines, which are at odds with the evidence, is striking. The reasons are probably complex and may involve a ‘messy blend of truth conflicts and conflicts of interest making it difficult to separate factual disputes from value disputes’ or a manifestation of optimism bias (an unwarranted belief in the efficacy of interventions).

Translation: Politicians that fell asleep in science class in high school are getting a lot of money from vaccine manufacturers. Through a combination of greasing the wheels and the fact that they are too stupid to know better, they actually think that they are helping us out by using government resources to try and ‘educate’ us that we need to get a flu shot that actually will do nothing for us.

Should you take Tamiflu or similar drugs to prevent the flu? As I have written about before it will only reduce your days of symptoms from 7 to 5, hardly a great deal for a drug that might make you want to off yourself.

originally posted December 17,2008

COMMENTS

Dan Abshear wrote on December 17, 2008

It is understood that the disease influenza is a disease caused by a RNA virus that can infect both mammals and birds. In fact, this particular virus can mutate to where it can be shared between the two life forms and multiply within each one of them.

Unlike coryza, influenza expresses symptoms more severely, and usually lasts two weeks until one recovers who has the flu. Influenza, however, poses a danger to some with compromised immune systems, such as the chronically ill. In cases such as this, influenza can in fact progress to deadly pneumonia. Symptoms of influenza usually start to express themselves 36 hours after being infected with the virus.

The flu vaccination contains three viral strains of suspected viruses for flu outbreaks during a particular winter season, as determined by the World Health Organization. Yet the strains chosen are speculated influenza viruses, as this does not eliminate the chance of a new and dominant influenza viral strain that possibly could cause a pandemic. It takes manufacturers about 6 months to make and formulate the influenza vaccination. We hope.

David Diamond wrote on December 17, 2008

Doug –

Kudos once again to you, perhaps because we think so much alike. I’ve been saying for years that the flu shot is useless and a waste of money.

FYI, attached is a paper published by the CDC. It shows that in ’97-98 people vaccinated with the flu shot actually had MORE lost work days and physician visits than placebo-injected controls. This is probably an example of randomness in science, since the next year the effect reversed with more placebo-injected people losing work than vaccinated people.

This paper also shows how rare the flu actually is – only 9 of 275 (3.2%) people in ’97 and only 20 of the 275 (7.2%) in ’98 were diagnosed with the flu – and no one died from it. It’s hard to see how the govt comes up with the figure of 30,000 deaths/year from the flu.

David Diamond